


Hungarian Double

by Huntress79



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Widow Natasha Romanov, Budapest, Gen, Little Steps into Humanity, No Canon Compliance after The First Avenger, SHIELD Agent Clint Barton, SHIELD Agent Steve Rogers (sort of), Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79
Summary: It’s Steve’s first mission after being defrosted - and it’s gonna be the one that will change his whole world.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Hungarian Double

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphire2309](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/gifts).



> written for Hurt/Comfort Exchange 2020 and sapphire2309. Canon divergence after “The First Avenger”, as Steve went down with the Valkyrie and was found just like in canon, but Natasha never defected to S.H.I.E.L.D. (until now). Enjoy! PS: Part 2 is already in the works!

*********************

“Good morning, Cap.”

Despite the (almost ungodly) early hour, Phil Coulson wore a smile when the elevator doors opened for Steve - who only belated realized that he was in the Medical wing of the New York Shield offices.

“Good morning, Phil. Has something happened?” Steve replied.

“Yeah, looks like you’re getting your first mission, after all.” He led Steve into an office. “Agent Barton has suffered an injury during his mission, well, an injury bad enough to have him benched for some time,” Phil explained, again with a smile on his lips.

“So you want me to take over, Sir?”

“Yes, Agent Barton will also tell you things about your mark that haven’t made their way into the official reports yet,” with that, Phil handed Steve a file, “but let me give you the rundown of the assignment.”

Both men sat down at the desk before Phil continued.

“Two months ago, we finally got a hint on the whereabouts of what a lot of secret services around the globe consider the best spy of all times, the legendary Black Widow. She, and probably other women too, were trained by a fraction of the former KGB, the Red Room.”

Steve opened the file, only to give Phil a pointed look when he noticed something missing.

“There’s no photo of her, Sir.”

“Correct. All we know about her is that she’s a redhead, but not more.” Phil held up a hand, sensing a protest forming in Steve. “Agent Barton has traced and followed her all across Europe ever since we got that first hint, and he has some more info on her looks. She might be good, too good for most of the secret services around, but we’re Shield, after all.”

*********************

Ten minutes later, after listening to Dr. Cho explaining Barton’s injuries to Phil, Steve finally met the other man. Sure, he had seen a pic of him when Nick introduced him to the members of Strike Team Delta, but the man already was on an assignment when that happened.

“Cap, it’s a pleasure to finally meet a living legend,” the archer drawled while shaking Steve’s hand.

“Likewise, and I hope you’re up and running really fast, Phil told me a lot of good things about you,” Steve replied with a smile.

“He did? Wow,” Clint gave back. “Okay, I know that they gave you my assignment.” Steve nodded. “Good. Now let me tell you something about that woman that will never go into the reports.”

“Now you got me curious,” Steve fired back.

“Alright. First off, she’s not just beautiful, she’s stunning. If she hasn’t dyed her hair in the meantime, the red will give her away. It’s an almost uncanny shade of red, but oh so fitting for her.” Clint rearranged himself on the bed. “She’s rather small, about Lacey down at the reception desk’s size.” Steve nodded, filing that info away in his mind. “From what receptionists and other hotel clerks have told me, she’s friendly, but reserved, careful to limit her talks to them to what’s absolutely necessary, almost as if…”

“...as if she’s waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop,” Steve continued.

“Yup,” Clint answered with a finger gun at Steve. “It’s still just a rumor, as Russia won’t say anything about the existence of the Red Room at all, but espionage grapevine is all about a fire at a school near Moscow that was supposed to be the headquarter of the Red Room all the time.”

“You think she’s responsible for it?”

“Maybe, would at least explain her behaviour. Still, it also could be kind of a maneuvre to throw us off.”

“What does your gut say? Phil and Nick mentioned that you sometimes rely on it,” Steve asked.

“Sometimes? Make that most of the time, and you got yourself a deal,” Phil called out from the doorway. “Clint, did you encounter other Russian agents in Budapest while trailing her?”

“No, not that I can remember, Phil,” the archer gave back, a frown appearing on his forehead. “Why?”

“Another rumor has picked up interest now,” Phil explained while sitting down in the second chair next to Clint’s bed. “Cap, I know you’ve been told about the various assassinations in the past few decades.”

“You mean like Kennedy?”

“Exactly, and while there’s not real evidence to it, most of the secret services believe that they all were done by one single person - a Russian assassin called ‘The Winter Soldier’. Like with the Widow, there’s not a single photograph of the assassin.”

“What Phil wants to say is - be careful, Cap,” Clint continued.

“And there’s another thing, Cap,” `Phil took over again.

“What?”

“Hydra’s still alive, somehow. And they have joined forces with the former KGB and other Russian agencies.”

*********************

Budapest was, for the lack of a better word, still the same, even after all those years. Sure, there were more skyscrapers in the suburbs, and the once destroyed buildings all were rebuilt, but somehow, Steve couldn’t help but smile when he saw small shops that still were there, just like they were back in late ‘44, when he and the Howlies made a stop here on their way back to Italy.

The current Shield safehouse was near the theater district, but Steve didn’t give it any thought. Back in the day, they used abandoned buildings for that, now they rented them legally, under the guise of one enterprise or another.

Agent May was waiting for him, the suitcase next to her a clear sign that she was ready to get out of here.

“Cap, welcome to Budapest,” the Asian American said.

“So, what’s the current situation?” Steve asked in lieu of a greeting.

“She’s laying low, but she’s still in town.”

“What makes you think so?”

Melinda held up a magazine, open on an advertisement for a ballet show. “This. Almost everywhere we could track her to here in Europe, there also was a ballet show, either for just one evening or only a few shows.”

“So…?” Steve trailed off, not sure where Agent May was leading with that.

“So, I did some snooping around. Turned out the Red Room usually disguised itself as a ballet academy, training the young girls to be the best of the best. Well, apparently not only in Pointe Dance,” she concluded with a crooked smile. “Alright, that would be all I can tell you, Cap. The Strike Team is in Vienna, waiting for your call.”

“Why would we need the Strike Team?”

“Shield wants the Widow dead, that’s why.” Melinda heaved a sigh. “Of course Phil hasn’t said a bit about that, right?”

“Yeah, and while I can understand why they want that, after reading her file on the flight over, I still believe that we might be able to turn her around, so to speak,” Steve replied.

“Good luck, Cap, not only with breaking at least 2 decades of doctrines in her mind, but also to convince the board of directors at Shield on your theory.”

With that, Melinda picked up her suitcase and was out of the building.

*********************

For the next few days, Steve’s day didn’t change at all. He kept circling around the places both Melinda and Clint had been as well, hoping to at least catch a look at their target. But so far, she kept herself hidden from view, so to speak.

Rumlow dropped by, almost literally, on Friday, bringing not only some equipment, but also their latest intel (which wasn’t a lot at all). Steve kept up a friendly face, but he visibly exhaled when the man left again. Something about Rumlow rankled him wrong, he just couldn’t put a finger on what that was.

Two more days went by, pretty much a carbon copy of the other days, and all that Steve managed in that time was filling a whole sketchbook with new drawings of the past - Peggy, Bucky, the Howlies, his mom.

*********************

Monday came around, and with it a change that no one would have expected to happen.

As every day, Steve did his morning run, stopping by a small cafe halfway to the safehouse for a coffee and a bit to bite.

He barely had sat down to catch his breath after giving his order, when two tables over, the person lowered the newspaper she was reading a bit, just enough for Steve to see the color of her hair - red. And not just any kind of red, but, true to Clint’s words, an almost uncanny shade, as if her head was on fire.

She didn’t acknowledge him at all (or if she did, it was way too subtle to be picked up anyway), and yet, Steve was already transfixed on her. He consumed his order in a new record time, not wanting to be hindered at all to follow her, should the need arise.

Which happened only minutes later. Placing a nice tip on the plate in front of her, she got up, her face almost completely covered by large sunglasses, her small body covered in a knee-length summer dress. She definitely was a master of disguise, Steve realized while also leaving a tip and starting to follow her.

For the next two hours or so, she led him around through half of Budapest, stopping at seemingly random places, and slowly, Steve realized that she probably knew of him being her tail. But by now, it was already to late to give up, and giving up wasn’t in Steve’s vocabulary after all.

At long last, they circled back to the street where the safehouse was, and to Steve’s surprise, he lost her right there. Heaving a sigh, he dug up the keys - only to stop when he felt the barrel of a small gun pressing into the lower part of back.

“Get in,” a female voice commanded, a strong Russian accent lacing it.

Steve did as told, even allowed her to grab the satellite phone from his pocket and lead him up to the second floor - where the next surprise was waiting for him.

The moment they entered the apartment, a figure came out of the shadows of the bathroom, his machine gun trained on Steve.

The man (that as much Steve could tell, judging on built and height) said something, but it was (a) in Russian, and (b) muffled by the mask he was wearing.

Apparently, the Widow in his back had no trouble at all to understand it, and Steve came to the conclusion that they were, somehow, working together.

At long last, the man lowered the gun, though he refused to put it down completely. The Widow gave Steve a little push, causing him to stumble further into the apartment. The last thing he took notice of was the sound of the door being closed and locked, then everything went black.

*********************

When Steve finally came around, he found himself bound to the desk chair from the study, though the chair now was standing in the middle of the living room. The man was nowhere to be seen (but Steve somehow felt that he was close by, probably in another room), but the Widow was sitting right opposite him.

And boy, Barton’s description couldn’t even think of holding a candle to the real thing. Long story short, the woman was ethereal. Deadly, but ethereal.

“What do you want?” Steve finally asked when they only kept staring at each other.

“Why is Captain America following me?” she asked back, the Russian accent dialed back a bit.

“I think you know why, Widow.”

“Da, I do,” she replied, in a dry, clinical tone. “So you’re the killer commando? Or are you just the spy, giving the commando to one of Shield’s pitbulls?”

“Maybe,” Steve replied with a shrug. “But maybe I don’t want to see you getting killed in cold blood?”

“Why? Why should you go against orders? Do you want to be punished?” she asked, her eyes going large.

“Shield doesn’t punish its agents, well not in a physical way. Worst thing that could happen is that I’m benched, so to speak, and have to do paperwork all day. Which is, believe me, a whole new level of torture these days. Everything has be at least in duplicates, and if you miss just one single box to check off, you have to do it all over again,” Steve explained before realizing what she was implying. “The Red Room did torture you? Is that why you burned it down to the grounds?”

“I…,” she began, only to be stopped when the man spoke up from the kitchen doorway in Steve’s back.

“That was my work.”

To Steve’s surprise, the voice held not only a Russian, but also a more familiar accent.

“Hold on? The Winter Soldier is American?” he asked, his eyes trained on the woman.

“What makes you think so?”

“His accent. If you know who I am, then you also know where I’m from.”

“You’re from New York. I don’t see what you’re implying.”

“Yes,” Steve began with a chuckle, “I’m from New York, if you just scratch the surface. But the whole truth is that I’m from Brooklyn, a part of New York, and that part has an accent that makes everyone stand out from any other New Yorker.”

She didn’t say anything, only grabbed something from the table next to her - as it turned out, it was Steve’s sketchbook. He saw that she had marked one of the pages with a paperclip, but she first pulled up a drawing of Peggy.

“Is she your girl?” she asked, her voice now almost sounding like a curious child.

“She… she was, once, maybe. But now, she’s an old woman, living the end of her days lost in her own mind.” Steve heaved a sigh. “To make it short, almost everyone in there is linked to my past, only the last three are current people.”

“I know, one of them is the man who was here before you.”

“Did one of you two shoot him?”

“No,” she replied in a clipped tone. “No, but we eliminated that subject. He will never, ever hurt someone again.”

“Why would you do that? I mean, it looks to me that you don’t want us to find out more about you, either of you…” Steve trailed off, confusion visible on his face.

“Actually, we want Shield to find us, but not to kill us, you understand?” Steve gave her a nod, and in the next moment, she apparently locked gazes with the man in Steve’s back before continuing. “Yasha and I have information, not only up there,” she tapped the side of her head, “but also stored on independent servers, encrypted data sticks and our own safehouses around the globe.”

“What do you want in return?”

“Freedom,” the man spoke up, and try as he might, Steve couldn’t help but compare the voice to every single one he knew from back before the war.

“In other words: please help us getting to the USA, and we both are more than willing to share what we know - about the inner works of the FSB, about Hydra.”

“So it’s true, about Hydra working under the FSB?”

She began to laugh, but Steve could tell that it was fake, something she probably would use on a mark. And wasn’t that a sad thought that a grown-up woman apparently only knew how to fake a laugh?

“What’s so funny?”

“That you think Hydra works under the FSB. It’s more the other way around, but actually nobody really cares about it.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Steve’s satellite phone on the table began to rang. With only a few expressions, Steve got her to put it on his thigh and pick the call up. Which she did, but not without pulling her gun and hold it at his other side.

“Rogers.”

_“Cap, it’s me, Rumlow. We got intel that the Soldier is also in Budapest. Rollins and I are en route to you, giving you some backup.”_

“Not necessary, Rumlow, I think I can handle some wannabe assassin, even without my shield.”

_“You don’t get it, Cap, do you? This Soldier is not just any assassin. If he strikes, you’ll be dead before you even realize he’s there.”_

“Well, I also know how to duck, so stay in Vienna, no need to give him more targets.”

Before Rumlow could come up with any reply, Steve gave her the sign to hang up while his mind was working a mile a minute. Back in New York, Phil barely knew anything about the Soldier, except for the rumors in the world of espionage about him. Rumlow, on the other hand, sounded like he had more info. Solid info.

“We have to leave,” Steve suggested, surprising himself.

“What? Why?" she asked, a bewildered expression crossing her face.

“Because these two guys are part of the killer commando you mentioned earlier. And while I haven’t worked with them before, something about them tells me they won’t hesitate to kill both of you in a heartbeat. Therefore, we have to leave.”

The urgency that Steve put into his words seemed to do the trick, cause he barely had finished the last sentence when he felt the bindings fall off. Though the joy of being free again was short-lived - within a heartbeat, his right hand was handcuffed to the other man’s left hand. And only then, Steve realized that the man had a metal arm (which was mind-bogging on its own, regardless the current situation).

“Let’s go!” Steve commanded, grabbing the old backpack with his clothes in passing, ignoring the look he got from the Widow.

*********************

In no time, they were at the other side of Budapest, in what Steve assumed was either the Widow’s or the Soldier’s safehouse. Wasting no time, they placed him in another desk chair, fixating him there once again.

“Sorry, Cap,” she said to him, “but this is for all our safety.”

“I know, otherwise I would already fight you,” Steve gave back. He knew somewhere deep down that he needed to earn their trust if he wanted a chance to fulfill their wish. And if that meant he had to follow their rules, then so be it.

The man came back from making a round through the house, giving the Widow a quick nod. For the first time, Steve got a good look at the man’s eyes - again, they seemed to be familiar, somehow, but also once again, Steve couldn’t put a finger on where he had seen them before.

The Soldier said something in Russian to her, and judging by the change in her expression, it wasn’t good news.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked.

“We’re low on groceries, means that I have to leave and get some things here without leading anyone on.”

“I could come along,” Steve suggested. “I have a basecap and plain clothes in the backpack. Nobody will realize who we are.”

“Let me tell you something, Cap - basecaps are, like, the worst kind of disguise out there,” she replied with a sigh. “But I guess it has to do.”

With that, she left the room, and in the next second, Steve felt the handcuffs open again.

“I’ll keep an eye on you, and if you try to escape…,” the Soldier said in his ear, and try as he might, Steve couldn’t quite suppress a shudder at what the other man was implying.

“I promised to help the two of you, didn’t I? Can’t do that when I’m trying to run away from you, huh?” He finally locked gazes with the Soldier. “Could you hand me the backpack, please?”

The Soldier now did what Steve just had done - he gave a full-body shudder, his eyes widening as if the simple command gave him horrors.

“Here you go,” the Widow suddenly spoke up, handing the item to Steve, who dug up a plaid shirt, some khakis and the basecap. Sure, it was somewhat strange to change in front of two virtual strangers, but then again, he already was used to it from his days at Camp Lehigh.

“Ready?” Steve finally asked.

“Ready,” she answered.

*********************

Luckily for them, there was a small grocery store near the house, and true to Steve’s prediction, nobody paid any attention to the big blonde and the petite redhead. The owner even went so far to borrow them a small handcart to get all their purchases home in one go.

When they got back, the Soldier was already waiting for them in the shadow of the doorway, but Steve knew that he had followed them over the rooftops, a small machine gun attached to him, ready to carry out his “promise” to Steve at the drop of a hat.

“So,” Steve began once the groceries were packed away and he was back in the chair, “how do we continue? If you remember, I have no means to contact my handler at Shield, now that we left the satellite phone back at the other safehouse.”

“Here,” the Widow answered while handing him a burner phone, “it’s not as fancy as the satellite one, but it should do the job.”

But instead of dialling the number he knew from mind, Steve just put the burner phone into one of the pockets of his khakis. No use to scare them off again with acting too fast. It was downright crazy, but somehow, these two reminded him more of the pack of stray cats he and Bucky discovered one year as kids.

“Thank you,” he finally told her, which prompted a small smile, like she was trying it out for the very first time.

*********************

The rest of the day went by without a hitch, and by the time night fell over Budapest, Steve was free to move around, though he knew that both were watching his every step. He didn’t test it, but he would win every bet that the windows were bolted and the doors all were locked.

And somehow, he was okay with that.

He only could plead their case to Coulson and Fury if he had their trust, so if he waited a day or two before he placed the call, then so be it.

Though, if Steve was honest for a moment, he had no idea whatsoever on what to tell Coulson about their offer. And could he really trust them to tell the truth? Or was it just a ploy to get them into Shield, probably on behalf of Hydra? Only time could tell.

*********************

The End (for now)

*********************


End file.
